They are Shyama Charan Shukla and Motilal Vora of the Congress and Sunderlal Patwa of the BJP. A fourth former CM, Kailash Joshi of the BJP could also have been in the race but was denied a ticket from Bhopal from where his party chose Union minister Uma Bharti, instead.

Of the three former CMs, Shukla is contesting the elections for the first time, Vora for the second and Patwa for the third time in three years. Shukla had become the CM way back in 1969 when he was around 40 years old probably holding the distinction of being the youngest ever CM of the State.

Shukla's younger brother and senior Congress leader Vidya Charan Shukla, who first got elected to the Lok Sabha in 1957, has been denied a Congress ticket this time. He has lost only two elections since 1957 in 1977 and in February last year. S CShukla, who is making his debut, is contesting from Mahasamund constituency which includes Rajim Assembly constituency which he represents.

His opponent in Mahasamund is BJP's Chandra Shekhar Sahu who won from there for the first time in February 1998. Motilal Vora is contesting from Rajnandgaon constituency for the second time in a row since February 1998.

Vora is also a former Union minister and an ex-Governor of UP besides being chief minister twice in the 80s. The third former chief minister Sunderlal Patwa is fighting from the Hoshangabad constituency. Hoshangabad is considered to be a safe seat for BJP since its nominee, Sartaj Singh had won all four elections since 1989 from there. Patwa's main opponent is former State minister, Rajkumar Patel who is also contesting a LS poll for the first time.